The Ark by Boyd Morrison

The Ark has a slick cover and a nice description and I found it recently for free from the author's website and I thought I'd give it a try.

I could tell right from the beginning but was hoping I was wrong. I kept reading and kept knowing more and more that it was true.

This is another fill-in-the-blank romance. Just like 100 billion other stories that may or may not call themselves romances. This one is an "adventure". I quit reading right after the perfect guy dived in the ocean just in the nick of time to save the drowning co-pilot, then turned to the perfect woman and smiled his perfect smile with his perfect teeth. Surprising and charming her, but this won't be the first time.

The boat pulled alongside and stopped when the aft end was even with them. She had been paying so much attention to the lifeboat that she’d forgotten about Logan. The hatch flew open, and a tall man with tousled brown hair looked around for a moment before diving into the water right about where she’d last seen Logan.

He stayed under for what seemed like hours but must have been only a few seconds. He surfaced, holding Logan under the chin. He handed Logan to a massive black man standing in the hatch who hauled Logan up like he was a doll.

Next, the swimming rescuer took the pilot from her and passed him up into the boat.

He turned to Dilara and, in defiance of the cold weather lashing at them, smiled. “Your turn, young lady.” He didn’t seem bothered at all by the cold water, simply focusing his blue eyes and perfect teeth at her. She found the effect oddly charming considering their circumstances, and it put her at ease.

I can see it all now. They fall in love even though neither really wants to, they both doubt and struggle, but in the end they can't help themselves. They achieve all their goals perfectly and live happily ever after. The rest of the story is just the scene decoration. Fill in the blank desperate situation of the moment which forces them together.

I just can't read it. I guess I just don't much like perfect people and predictable stories. They're kind of nauseating.

I'm off to try again in hopes of finding something interesting to read.

The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss

The Whiskey Rebels is set in America around 1791-1792. It's a story of the country's economy being threatened by greedy investors, and that part of the story is based on real history.

The book is part mystery as Ethan Saunders spends most of the book trying to find out what's going on and we follow as he discovers secrets, makes choices, and figures it all out. Love, revenge, patriotism, brutality, greed all play their parts.

The book is written from the points of view of two characters, alternating by chapter. The two characters had the same exact way of speaking, without reading the chapter titles you would only figure out who's talking by what they were talking about. I guess it's not so bad, but I can think of one book in which this was done very well called The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (great book, btw). The Poisonwood Bible is told from the various character's points of view, and each person speaks differently - which is what real people do. In The Whiskey Rebels, they sounded exactly the same. I wonder why the author used this approach when it sounds just like the usual third person narrative only with the wrong pronouns.

The two characters tell their stories and for at least the first half of the book they seem unrelated. Eventually their stories become intertwined.

Dorland held out his hand, and one of his companions placed within it a military bayonet. “In past days, men carried swords upon their person, but our times have decayed.” He altered his grip upon the blade, weighing it in his hand. He drew close, as did his friends, two of them as near as he, though one hung back. “Have you anything to say before I end your life?”

I cleared my throat. “Dorland, I am sadly disappointed with the man I have become. I am drunk not only at this moment but perpetually. I have had no steady source of income in half a decade, and I am incorrigibly addicted to gaming, so that the money I steal or borrow or, on those rare occasions, earn, is gone as soon as it is in my hands. My clothes are old and tattered and frequently pungent to the nose, and above all of that I believe that during your attack I lost control of my bladder and pissed upon my own person.”

“You think this should make me spare you?” Dorland asked. “Do you think your pathetic condition will stay my hand?”

“No, I only wished to make note of the sort of man your wife admitted to her bed.”

The book started off interesting but quickly became boring and I was actually about to stop reading when I finally became interested again close to the middle.

I thought the book was ok, not great and not awful.

The Basement by Stephen Leather

The Basement is a 66 page story about a wannabe screenwriter and a couple of cops who think he's a serial killer. The point of view shifts between the writer and the killer throughout, and you don't know if they are the same person or not. The story keeps you guessing the entire time, until the end when there is a pretty good twist. I liked it and recommend it.

I wake up like a jolt of electricity has been passed through my body and for a few minutes I lie still, staring up at the ceiling, my mind racing. I've got a complete plot in my head, my subconscious has been working overtime and all I have to do is remember it, to run the scenes through my head so that they're imprinted on my subconscious. It's good, it's really good, and when I get up I rush to the typewriter and bash out a synopsis. When I've finished I pace around the room, reading it aloud. It's better than good. It's great.

I even had the title. The Bestseller. My blood starts to race as I read it through for the second time. This is going to be the one. This is the one that's going to net me a million dollars and a first class ticket to the west coast. It starts with a frustrated writer enrolling on a university creative writing course, determined to write a best-selling book which will make him rich and famous. It's not autobiographical, this guy is a psychopath. No, more of a sociopath. Most of the people on the course are writer wannabees, low on talent but high on enthusiasm, and he is contemptuous of them. The writer is asked by the lecturer to read from his work in progress. His opening sentence is "I'd kill to write a bestseller...." and it rapidly becomes clear that his book is a first person account of a murderer looking for a victim. The lecturer and students realise with horror that he is writing about them. The would-be murderer is planning to kill somebody, dismember the body and bury it in several locations. The book will provide clues to the identity of the victim and the location of the body parts. It will be the ultimate treasure hunt, and the prize will be the writer going to the gas chamber. Or the electric chair. Whatever.

Over the following weeks the writer follows several of the students home, and writes about their possibilities as victims. The lecturer calls in the police, they read the work-in-progress but say there is nothing they can do unless the writer commits an offense. During the next reading of the work-in-progress, the writer considers the possibility of the lecturer as the victim. The writer discovers that the lecturer is having an affair with a young girl on the course. That too goes into the book. The writer becomes increasingly isolated, the rest of the class either fear or ridicule him. The girl who is having an affair with the lecturer vanishes, though her apartment is covered with her blood.

The police question the writer, and go through his manuscript, but they can't believe that anyone would actually write what is in effect a detailed confession before committing a murder. Then they discover his fingerprints at the crime scene and arrest him. The writer is a warped genius, and the cops are unable to get a confession from him. He has an explanation for his prints being at the crime scene - he says that he was having an affair with the girl. The cops don't believe him, but eventually they have to release him and he goes back to the creative writing course. His book is almost finished.

The police, acting on an anonymous tip-off, discover part of the girl's body in the lecturer's apartment, along with the murder weapon. The lecturer is arrested, charged and found guilty, though the rest of the girl's corpse is never discovered.

The writer finishes his book, and it's an instant bestseller. Rumors abound that he has gotten away with murder and that the clues to the whereabouts of the girl's body parts are hidden in the book. Sales boom. The last scene is of him signing copies of his novel - called The Bestseller - in a book shop. A young wannabee writer asks him how to write a Bestseller. "Easy," says the writer, "you just have to kill for it...."

You can get it free from the author's website.

Gone With The Trash by Brad Rines and Patrick Lussier

Gone With The Trash is a humorous space adventure about a couple of trash men caught up between the military and a terrorist group.

The book is fun adventure from beginning to end. The main characters are very likable as they face danger in their Spiffy Sensor Suit Undergarments, Geronimo with his stolen red cape. Their personalities are definitely different as Gladius is driven to do what he considers to be the right thing, while Geronimo just wants to get out of danger.

Geronimo frantically tries to return to his Magno Chair(tm) whilst holding his right foot with his left hand and his head with his right.

"You chunka shit. I've had it with you, your Dave crap, your sarcastic bullshit, and your sissy-ass voice!"

"Calm down, Dave. There's something else you should kno--"

"FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE!!!"

Lavoriss worms his way over to the Holo-File(tm) and begins to dig. He pulls out a well-worn Holo-Cine(tm) cartridge and rams it up to the single-lensed eye of the computer. 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Byte O'Matic gasps.

"You're the space oddity… I'll show you."

Geronimo smashes the cartridge against the back of the Magno Chair(tm), a move which sends him careening head over heels, thrashing the cartridge on anything within reach.

"Stop, Dave. What are you doing? Do you think that's wise, Dave? Please stop."

This is a really fun book, highly recommended. It's a free download in pdf format from the author's website, and is now available at the bottom of this blog page in prc format.